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The Kerala Swathanthra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KSMTF) and
National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) have decided to launch mass
agitations against the anti-fishermen policies of the State
Government. As part of the protest, they will organise a ‘proclamation
rally’ -jalayatra – from May 2 ahead of the agitations, KSMTF state
president P P John and NFF national secretary T Peter said.

The leaders said that they would organise a ‘jalayatra’ from Kochi to
Shangumugham here as part of the proclamation rally.

Among the demands of the fishworkers is that the movement of cargo
vessels should not be permitted along the coastal waters as it has
caused serious concern among fishermen who used gillnets along the
coast from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod.

They also demanded stopping of illegal constructions violating the
Coastal Area Regulatory Zone and laws to be enacted for the security
of fishermen who venture into the sea. They also wanted the seaplane
project to be abandoned as it could affect the inland fishing.

The ‘jalayatra’ will start from Chellanam fishing harbour on May 2
and reach Arthungal fishing harbour in Alappuzha in the evening. The
next day, it will pass through Chulatheruvu in Kayamkulam, Chavara
fish landing centre and Astamudi Fish Landing Centre. On May 4, the
proclamation rally will have meetings at Sakthikulangara andNeendakara and Thangassery fishing harbours in Kollam.

The rally will start from Thangassery on May 5 in the morning and
conclude at Shangumugham in the evening.

Kochi: The Union Cabinet Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Mr. Vayalar Ravi’s deplorable behavior
and reaction to a young woman journalist of Mathrubhumi TV Chanel is condoned by Network of Women
in Media, India (NWMI) Kerala Chapter members who met at Press Club in Kochi on Tuesday

The Minister’s insinuations and words show that he thinks the whole incident is a joke. When asked his
reactions of the developments in the Suryanelli rape case in which P J Kurien’s name has resurfaced, the
minister questions her intention and also makes a remark on her morals and integrity.

It was not an expected conduct of a senior Minister and shows the lack of sensitivity that is needed in a
leader of his stature. The posture, body language and his statements were unbecoming of a man of his
experience in public life as people’s representative.

We believe that if journalists who have to ask questions and get reactions to happenings 24*7 in current
affairs are treated thus, then the common woman has no chance at all.

It is alleged that Ali clicked ‘like’ on a Facebook page titled ‘I Love Pakistan‘.

KOCHI: Clicking on the ‘like’ button on Facebook has landed K H Muhammed Ali, a native of Eloor and Dubai municipality employee, in deep trouble. He has been charged with sedition and insulting national honour.The only crime that Ali remembers doing is clicking ‘like’ on the Facebook profiles of friends, including a few Pakistanis, he earned in Dubai.Now, the Kochi police have booked him for sedition, sending offensive message (66A of Information Technology Act, 2000), and for insulting the national flag (section 2 of Prevention of Insults to National Honor Act, 1971).In the FIR filed in September 2012, it is alleged that Ali clicked ‘like’ on a Facebook page titled ‘I Love Pakistan’ and that a picture showing a dog clothed in the national flag was seen in his Facebook profile page.

On Tuesday, Ali filed a petition at the Kerala high court, through advocate K K Ashkar, challenging the FIR registered by the Eloor police.

Ali has contended in the petition that his Facebook account doesn’t bear the message ‘I Love Pakistan’, doesn’t have any pictures showing disrespect to the national flag, nor has sent any offensive message or pictures showing disrespect to the national flag.

He further pointed out that registering of FIR in cyber cases without a pre-investigation inquiry by an investigative agency with expertise in information technology is against the rules stipulated in the cyber crime investigation manual, the only such manual in India that was released by the Union home secretary.

After police registered the FIR alleging sedition, he and his family have been facing social stigma, Ali’s petition said. His family has been isolated by the local community and relatives and they are being treated like traitors. His wife and younger child have been traumatized by the ordeal, the petition stated.

Kochi city police commissioner arrived at a hypothetical inference that amounts to character assassination, the petitioner alleged.

The petitioner has cited the commissioner’s remark, which is extracted in the FIR, stating “as petitioner was working in UAE and his remark in the Facebook ‘I Love Pakistan’ and his close relation with Pakistanis in UAE may indulge in antisocial activities”. Such a casual statement prejudicially affects the liberty of the petitioner and has caused mental trauma, social ostracism, and persecution, it is alleged.

THE PETITION IS BELOW

THIS IS CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF ABUSE OF IT ACT BY POLICE & MUSLIM PREJUDICE & STATE LED INJUSTICE
BEFORE THE HON’BLE HIGH COURT OF KERALA AT ERNAKULAM

For the reasons stated in the accompanying affidavit and in the Memorandum of Writ Petition, it is most humbly prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to stay the further proceedings of Ext.P1 First Information Report, pending disposal of this writ petition.

“I am against the decision to give them capital punishment because it is not the right way to deal a crime with another crime. Capital punishment itself is a judicially assisted murder,” he told reporters here.

“It is my bus, It is my capital. The girl is my sister and it is my brother who has done it. I am ashamed,” he said.

The rape of the paramedical student on December 16 on a moving bus had evoked anger and nationwide protests for the past few days.

The protests took an ugly turn today in Delhi when hooligans and some political elements hijacked the peaceful protests, resulting in violence and attacks against public property and police which retaliated with teargas and water cannons, leading to injuries to persons on both sides.

Kamal Hassan, who was here for the audio release of his latest flick ‘Viswaroopam‘, to be released on January 11, said he planned a sequel to the movie.

A day before the theatre release, the movie will have a premier show on DTH.

Actress Pooja Kumar, who plays the female lead in the film, was also present.

There might also be a ban on employing people who drink in institutions run by the church.

(Photo courtesy: indiavision.com)

Kochi: If the bishops’ council in Kerala has its way, alcohol consumption would become a sin for over 5 million Catholics in the state.
The temperance commission of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC), which has taken up the issue, also said that a person would also have to confess if he/she had consumed alcohol.

The commission is also seeking a ban on employing people who drink in institutions run by the church.

The proposals form part of a 30-point draft liquor policy to be put up for discussion before the Kerala Catholic Council (KCC), an apex body comprising bishops, priests and the laity of the church.

“The panel was forced to take the extreme stand in view of the crisis the Kerala society is going through due to excessive drinking,” Fr. P.J. Antony, secretary of the commission said.

He said the draft proposals were based on the teachings of Bible and were also in tune with scientific studies that held alcohol as a cause for various physical and mental illnesses.

“On the basis of the discussions, the liquor policy will be announced on February 2. The church believes this is its moral responsibility,” he added.

However, there are differences of opinion on making drinking a sin in the state.

Charlie Paul, president of KCBC Madhya Virudha Samithi, said making drinking a sin may need more theological backing.

“Some bishops have reservations on this and want it to be referred to theological experts,” he said.

Action Taken: Following a complaint by the girl’s mother, police registered a case against 40-year-old Kora, who is absconding, under Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act and IPC Section 328 (giving liquor to a minor).

Description:

The incident came to light after the girl showed some behavioural problems. She was first taken to a paediatrician and then to psychiatrist Ajesh Ramesh. The girl told Ramesh that her father Kora had sexually abused her several times after making her drink alcohol. He then offered her to his friends too, Ramesh added.

Following a complaint by the girl’s mother, police registered a case against 40-year-old Kora, who is absconding, under Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act and IPC Section 328 (giving liquor to a minor). The victim’s mother said she had divorced her husband six months ago and one of her two daughters was with him as per the court order. She suspected that the girl has been abused since then. More shocking was the mother’s accusation that though she had lodged a complaint, the inspector concerned has failed to take action after which she approached the Superintendent of Police (Rural).

Kerala Swathantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KSMTF) and the
National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) have urged the State and Union
governments to drop the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project and set up
wind farms along the coast to generate power.

Addressing reporters here on Thursday, T. Peter, secretary, NFF; P.P.
John, State president, KSMTF; and J.P. John, district president;
questioned the motive of locating the nuclear plant in the densely
populated Kudankulam coast. Highlighting the possibility of a nuclear
accident as the major cause for concern, they feared that the constant
discharge of hot water into the sea from the plant would deplete fish
stocks.

KSMTF and NFF were embarking on a State-wide agitation from Friday to
express solidarity with the ongoing stir against the project. Fish
workers and their families would take out a march to the Secretariat
here on Friday and stage a dharna. The agitation would be extended to
other districts over the next few days. NFF would observing September
17 as protest day in New Delhi and in coastal States.

KSMTF urged the State government to adopt a stand against nuclear
plants. Mr. John said the oceanarium project in Kochi showcased at the
Emerging Kerala meet would pose a threat to the fisheries sector.

The office-bearers said the Chief Minister’s announcement that the
coastal waters would be opened up for movement of cargo vessels had
led to concern among fishermen who used gillnets along the coast from
Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod. Mr. John urged the government to
restrict the movement of cargo vessels beyond the 12-nautical-mile
limit.

VU George, 61, remembers the precise day he arrived in Mangalore from Kochi as a nervous teenager: June 6, 1970. “It was raining heavily,” says the publisher and editor of Mangalore Today, a 17-year-old local monthly magazine. His elder brother, an engineer working in Mangalore, didn’t turn up at the station as he’d promised.

The platform cleared out and George, who knew only Malayalam and some broken English, stood there alone. A woman in her mid-40s approached him and asked him where he wanted to go. He showed her a piece of paper with his brother’s address. Even though it was out of the way, she dropped him off. “I decided to stay in Mangalore forever,” says George. “It was like heaven.”

He emphasises the word ‘was’.

For years, Mangalore has enjoyed the reputation of being an idyllic student town, with a history of religious tolerance and a balance of Indian and European influences, the latter remnants of Portuguese colonisation between 1526 and 1640. An educational hub known for its engineering and medical institutions, it has a literacy rate of 94.03%, according to the 2011 census. The city’s colleges and IT companies, such as Infosys, attract youngsters from all over the country.

“Eight years ago, boys and girls could be seen sitting together in and around parked cars on New Year’s Eve till 3 am,” says Joy Lasrado, 27, a management graduate. “No one bothered us.” The city shuts down by 9 pm, but its thriving though small nightlife — mostly pubs playing rock and electronic music — goes on till midnight.

Over the past five years, roughly coinciding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coming to power in Karnataka, this atmosphere has rapidly changed, say locals.

In 2009, activists of Sri Ram Sene, a right-wing Hindu group, attacked women in a pub. A week ago, activists claiming to represent a similar organisation, the Hindu Jagarana Vedike, attacked youngsters partying at a resort just outside the city.

This incident has inflamed the city, revealing a growing tension between right-wing Hindu groups and a multicultural Westernised youth. Pressured by public outrage, on Sunday, a day after the incident, the police filed an FIR against 28 people, including Naveen Soorinje, the journalist who shot the horrifying video, and have so far made 23 arrests. On Monday, the All College Students Union of Mangalore University called for a college bandh, protesting against the incident. On Wednesday, C Manjula, chairperson of the Karnataka State Commission for Women, blamed the police for inaction against illegal homestays running without proper licences, such as the one in which the incident took place. She also suggested that women obtain police permission before attending such parties.

The Vedike denies it planned the attack, but admits that some of its members were involved. “On the pretext of parties, girls are lured to homestays, where illegal activities take place,” says Satyajit Surathkal, convenor of Vedike in the south. “Eight boys and five girls, all between the ages of 18 and 22, partied with alcohol in a bungalow with three bedrooms. What do you think is going to happen? Do I need to spell it out?”

The police say they found no drugs on the premises and that all the youngsters were of the state’s legal drinking age, 18. Two of the victims, Gurudath Kamath, a 24-year-old event organiser, and Vijay Kumar, a 23-year-old DJ, have come forward and spoken about their ordeal, but the young women are unwilling to file any FI Rs.

They did not answer their mobile phones when HT called them. “We have been trying to get them to speak about the incident openly, but they’re too scared,” says Kamath. “We were doing nothing wrong or illegal. If they register complaints, we will have a stronger case.”

Clash of cultures
Since the BJP came into power in the state in 2008, Hindutva activists have been stirring up trouble in many ways, says Mangalore Today’s George.

“Mangalore is a hardcore RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) place,” he says. “Not a leaf flies in this town without its knowledge.”

Besides the attacks on youngsters, some celebrate the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, December 6, as Vijayotsava, on Car Street in the heart of the city by making inflammatory speeches, and the police don’t do anything, he says. “They impose a section 144 order (prohibiting public gatherings) across the city. Are these programmes not a violation of this?” he asks.

Subhas Chandra, assistant commissioner of police, denies that such events take place. “We clamp down on pujas and other events being held on December 6,” he said.

Students at St Agnes, a reputable girls’ college, say they are regularly stared at and even threatened by Hindutva activists, who regularly warn them against hanging out with boys of other faiths.

TR Jagannath, assistant commissioner of police, Mangalore (south), says extremist elements from both Hindu and Muslim communities cause problems. “This period, between Ramzan and Dussehra, tends to be very volatile,” he says.

But there appears to be a growing mistrust of the police. On Monday, when the students of St Agnes attempted to protest against Saturday’s incident, the police took videos of the girls who were protesting, said several students, who wished to remain anonymous. “A senior police official threatened to present the video in court as evidence of us flouting a curfew ,” said one student. Asked Sister Prem D’Souza, principal of St Agnes College: “Are we supposed to ask the police for protection or are we supposed to fear them?”

The police deny the students’ allegations. “The videos were being taken by the media,” said Subhas Chandra, assistant commissioner of police. “We were merely telling the students to stay within the college premises and to not come out, because we had imposed a curfew. They were within their rights to protest within the premises, not outside.”

The police had imposed a curfew in certain parts of the city on Sunday, which they lifted only on Thursday evening.

For their part, Mangalore’s youngsters are fed up with rising moral policing. After the latest incident, the youth, particularly the women, say they feel uneasy about having a social life. “I was supposed to go for a friend’s farewell party this week, but we’ve cancelled it,” says Liane Noronha, a 21-year-old college student.

Sister D’Souza says that, over the past week, she has been receiving several calls from worried parents when their daughters don’t return home within an hour of classes ending.

“It used to be a lovely place for young people,” says George. “I will continue to stay here, but I don’t blame today’s youth for wanting to leave.”

Malia Politzer & Vidya Krishnan

Thu, May 24 2012., livemint.com

Kochi (Kerala): Police found the woman wandering on the streets of Kochi in a gauzy, mud-splattered salwar kameez. Emaciated, with matted black hair, slack jaws and a vacant gaze, she couldn’t remember her name or where she belonged. She was taken to a local magistrate, who declared her mentally unfit and placed her in Kauffernaun, a half-way home for the disabled, abandoned, destitute and mentally ill.

“This is what we found after we tried to clean her,” says Sister Juliet, who runs the home, sliding a photograph across the table. The picture is a close-up of the back of the woman’s head. The matted hair had been removed to reveal a chunk of her open skull, riddled with squirming white maggots. She died three days later of heart failure.

The Catholic nun has seen many such cases in her nine years at Kauffernaun, where most of her wards will live until they die. Few will receive full treatment. Such an end often represents the best-case scenario for India’s growing numbers of homeless mentally ill.

Nationwide there are only 37 state-run mental hospitals—a fraction of the number required. In northern India, homes providing long-term care to people with mental illness are virtually non-existent, and the wandering mentally ill become indistinguishable from thousands of beggars in the streets, or migrant workers sleeping on sidewalks.

Two years after former model Gitanjali Nagpal was found begging on the streets of a south Delhi neighbourhood in a confused mental state in 2007, the Delhi high court ordered the government to create wards for mentally ill women in shelter homes within three months. Three years later, little has changed. Four half-way homes have been sanctioned, but none has actually been built.

In southern states, a number of privately run half-way homes have emerged to meet demand. But lacking the resources to meet more than basic necessities, such homes have recently come under fire for their abysmal conditions. In Kerala, the few that exist are now in danger of being shut down.

“Homelessness among mentally ill is growing significantly—it’s really become my major concern,” says Nimesh Desai, the director of the department of psychiatry at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), Delhi. “I am getting more and more convinced that in public mental health, the final frontier is the issue of mental illness and homelessness.”

Nowhere to go: Mentally ill women staring out of a room at the Capernaum Charitable Trust in Kochi. Sivaram V/Mint

By even the most conservative estimates, roughly 7% of India’s population struggles with some form of major mental illness—at least 70 million people, according to the Indian Council for Medical Research. Yet in urban areas, at least half will remain untreated, and in rural areas the treatment gap is estimated at as much as 90%, according to the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bangalore.

The ministry of health and family welfare estimated that at least a quarter of India’s mentally ill are homeless.

Cutting across class

Today, those numbers appear to be growing—and not just among the poor. Psychiatrists in government hospitals observe growing numbers of mentally ill homeless coming from educated, middle-class backgrounds. “I have seen post-graduates and PhD-qualified people who are mentally ill living on the streets,” said Desai. “It’s an issue that cuts across class and caste.”

Yadagiri was one such man. A 32-year-old with a degree in electrical engineering who lived with his parents in a city outside of Chennai, he began exhibiting signs of schizophrenia in his early 20s—having paranoid delusions, and talking to himself. One day when his symptoms were bad, he wandered out of his house, only to be found by a police officer more than 250 kilometres away in Kerala, who placed him in Prathyasa Bhavan, a home for destitute mentally ill in Kochi. “He was here for a year and a half,” says Ammni Varghesekutty, who runs the home that treated him.

Yadagiri was lucky—he responded well to treatment, and was accepted back into his family. “He didn’t know who he was or where he came from when he came. We gave him treatment and eventually he got well enough to remember where he was from. We returned him home,” says Varghesekutty. Unfortunately, few patients share Yadagiri’s happy homecoming.

Desai says the growing number of homeless mentally ill is linked to India’s economic transformation.

“What’s happening with mental illness is what is happening with many social problems in transitional society,” says Desai, adding that the strong family and social networks that used to provide support to people with mental illness are breaking down. Many families are no longer able or willing to take care of mentally ill relatives so they end up on the streets, he says. But while the governments of developed countries have organized systems in place to help treat the mentally ill, India is yet to make that transition, he adds.

Countrywide, India has approximately 3,500 registered psychiatrists. In practical terms that means three psychiatrists per one million people. Nearly 80% of India’s districts do not have any mental health-care facilities. And long-term care centres are almost entirely absent.

“I calculated sometime ago that, by conservative estimates, we need at least 100,000 vacancies for long-term residential care,” says Desai. “But right now we only have 2,000 throughout India.”

No easy solution

In the southern states, the dearth of government-approved, professionally run facilities has led to the emergence of a growing number of small, unlicensed privately run homes. In most cases, the homeless are identified by the local police, who, after obtaining approval of the local magistrate, route them to such homes.

While exemplary homes do exist—a Chennai-based home for destitute mentally ill women called Banyan has garnered international recognition for its model rehabilitation programme—most leave much to be desired. The dire state of India’s mental asylums has made sporadic headlines since 2001, when 26 mentally ill people died in a fire at Moideen Badusha Mental Home in Tamil Nadu. Chained to their beds, they were unable to escape.

Following the Erwadi incident, the Supreme Court ordered that all such homes obtain licences prior to opening. But five months ago, the issue resurfaced again when another small, unlicensed, privately run home in Thrissur was raided by the police after neighbours complained of foul smell.

Inside, 70 mentally ill men were found chained to windows. Others were sitting in years of accumulated filth.

Shortly after the Thrissur case, a non-governmental organization, Human Rights Law Network, filed a petition in the Kerala high court requesting that the Mental Health Authority mandate licences for all institutions treating or housing mentally ill patients, or shut them down. The authority responded with a counter-petition that all the homes that do not become licensed will be shut down.

But obtaining a licence is next to impossible under the law: Kerala’s mental health policy dictates a doctor-patient ratio of one to 100—an impossible-to-meet requirement in a country with three trained psychiatrists per one million people. There are also specifications on staff strength and infrastructure requirements that sound good on paper but clash with the on-the-ground reality.

While the Planning Commission has not yet announced the size or scope of the outlay for the 12th Plan for treating mental illness, “we certainly hope for an increase,” says Keshav Desiraju, the additional secretary for health and family welfare.

Desiraju is part of the technical committee working on a draft of a new mental health act since January 2010 that aims to replace the Mental Health Act of 1987. Though he does not have a definite timeline for completion, he hopes it will be introduced in Parliament soon.

One improvement in the proposed new act is the establishment of a registry and guidelines governing half-way homes catering to mentally ill with no place else to go. It also attempts to address issues surrounding guardianship and human rights neglected in the Mental Health Act.

But some say the proposed new act does not go far enough. “India was among the first countries to sign the UN Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities, but has yet to align its policies with the UN convention,” says Javed Abidi, director for the National Centre for the Promotion of Disabled People.

Abidi complains that the proposed legislation also neglects key issues—like how to address the question of legal capacity (the ability to decide on issues such as the right to marry or whether to be admitted to a mental institution). “It’s been two years already and the Bill is still very far from Parliament,” he says. “Anyway, it’s a very sad commentary on how badly these issues are neglected.”

Lacking government funding and running primarily on charity, most homes in Kerala are unlicensed, operate under the government radar or regulation, and are unable to afford anything but the basics.

Sister Juliet relies on “helpers” among the inmates whose circumstances are less extreme. In the men’s ward, more than 70 boys and men are confined to two floors by sturdy iron bars and heavy padlocks, left to their own devices for most of the day. At night, they share sturdy wooden cots stinking of urine. The worst affected—delusional and violent—live side by side with those who have only mild mental disabilities. In the women’s ward, one inmate wanders aimlessly from her bed to a small bathroom while another jumps up and down on a small metal cot.

In the north, no homes exist for the mentally ill. IHBAS runs a bi-weekly mobile health clinic near the Jammu Masjid Mosque in partnership with the local magistrate and Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA), an NGO that runs homeless shelters in the capital. Over the past three years, they have managed to treat more than 42 severely mentally ill people, but a lack of resources limits their reach. “If we could evolve a model of half-way homes in combination with functional community-based treatment and mobile clinics, few people would need institutionalization,” says Paramjeet Kaur, the director of AAA. “It’s lack of governmental will, more than anything else.

The fast-spreading strike by nurses in Kerala has laid bare the inherent contradiction in India’s burgeoning healthcare sector: it is a highly exploitative industry dominated by money-minded corporates and doctors.

While the doctors and surgeons earn by the hour, sometimes running into millions of rupees a month, the nurses who form the backbone of patient care are thrown the crumbs. At best, on an average, Rs 4000-8000 a month.

While managements are trying every trick in the book to rein in the striking nurses, including court injunctions and new recruitments, the doctors asked for invoking ESSMA, the essential services maintenance act, the bogey that oppressive governments use against labour unrest. The state unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and the Qualified Private Medical Practitioners Association (QPMPA), an association of private medical practitioners and hospital managements were united in this demand.

The QPMA even went a step ahead and asked the political parties and the government not to encourage the strike.

Does it matter that for every doctor, you need many nurses and without them, hospitals will crumble? The contrarian stand of the doctors clearly demonstrates the power and class inequality in the healthcare sector.

The nurses are now clear that even the doctors they serve 24/7, much less the management, will not support them. Their agitation is spreading to every part of the state threatening to cripple its private healthcare sector. It’s a “white-revolution” that is as spontaneous as the Arab Spring.

The demands of the nurses are very simple. They want decent salaries and better working conditions. Nothing more. In 2009, the state government has fixed a minimum salary of Rs 9,000. A majority of the hospitals do not pay this, although the nurses say that even this salary is inadequate and should be revised.

According to United Nurses Association, the newly formed organisation that galvanised the feeble voices of protest into a snowballing movement, only five per cent of the hospitals in the state pay the minimum wages. In a Kochi hospital where the nurses are on strike, a nurse with 16 years of experience is given only Rs 7,000. Most of the nurses are paid Rs. 4,000-6,000.

The worst off are the “trainees” or the straight-out-of-college nurses. They are usually paid Rs 1,000 or so and work under bonded conditions. This is widely prevalent in hospitals outside the state, where the managements even confiscate their certificates. The state of their bonded condition was brought to light, when a nurse committed suicide in Mumbai last year. The trainees suffer in silence in the hope of a few years experience so that they can shift to a bigger hospital or go abroad.

The flicker of protests first appeared at the end of last year with Keralite nurses going on strike in Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta. Early this year, about 800 nurses from a “multi-speciality” hospital in Kochi and another 600 in a private medical college hospital in a southern district went on strike, followed by several other hospitals.

The organisational capacity of the nurses has strengthened considerably since they agitated in Mumbai and Delhi. They were so busy with enslaving work that they didn’t even know how to organise a protest without inviting criticism. The main charge against them has been that they didn’t give sufficient notice to managements and the patients suffered.

The labour minister of Kerala, Shibu Baby John, while supporting nurses advised them to follow fair labour practices, such as sufficient advance notice, so that they are on good legal footing. Now they serve notice and go on strike. The Association says that more hospitals have been served notice, including the one where they had reached an agreement last year. Apparently this hospital reneged on their commitment.

The doctor-management nexus that the strike has brought to light was not unexpected given their mutually beneficial stakes. “IMA seeking ESMA against striking nurses is only a ploy to protect hospitals, some of which are owned by its members.” according to Jasmin Shah, State President of the United Nurses Association. The doctors also came in for severe criticism from civil society because they went on strike several times in the recent past. “If the IMA can call for state-wide strike when doctors face a problem, why can’t we agitate for minimum wages,” is Shah’s counter.

Meanwhile, support is pouring in from all quarters. The CPM, the CPI, the women’s wing of the Congress and INTUC have openly supported the cause of the nurses. The labour minister remained categorical that he wouldn’t allow anybody to pay the nurses below the minimum wages and violate labour rules. The State Women’s Commission member T Devi said that the commission will intervene if the nurses asked for help.

Even the courts are on their side. While responding to a plea on the issue, the Kerala High Court said last week that nurses were being exploited. They were forced to work for low salaries and that is why they were on strike, the court said. Some private hospitals haven’t revised the salaries even in the past ten years.

It’s worthwhile to note that when the nurses from Kerala went on strike in Mumbai and Delhi last year, the politicians in Kerala hardly paid any attention since they were busy with a politically expedient Mullaperiyar.

However, the nurses didn’t wait for any patronage. Their working conditions were so exploitative, that they abandoned their fear of job-(in)security and anxieties about hefty loan-paybacks. The sincerity of purpose paid off. Now that their movement is gaining momentum, all political parties want a share of the success.

The doctor-management voice against them continue to demonstrate the class struggle in the healthcare sector.